Some 150,000 local and foreign tourists will attend the Inti Raymi ceremony to be held on June 24 in Cusco, the general manager of Cusco’s Festivities Municipal Enterprise (Emufec) Miguel Zamora said Tuesday.

This is the number of people that have paid for a sit to enjoy this festivity, though some other people rather climb a little mountain near the esplanade of Sacsahuayman to appreciate the staging.

Zamora said that reservations for a sit to watch the Inti Raymi have reached 78 percent, and most of them belong to foreign tourists.

The Inti Raymi (Festival of the Sun) is considered as the most solemn and grandiose festivity of the Inca era in honor of the god Inti (Sun).

It used to mark the winter solstice and a new year in the Andes of the Southern Hemisphere.

Since 1944, a theatrical representation of the Inti Raymi has been taking place at Sacsayhuamán (two km. from Cusco) on June 24 of each year, attracting thousands of tourists and local visitors.